trauma74

Congrats Seth and Kristen!!!!!

That was a very moving video! God Bless all of our Fallen Heros and God Bless America!

I have tried several glass mount antennas and the only thing I have to say is that they suck. Window tint and some of the more modern things they use to make windows do not let the RF travel thru the window. These antennas are horrible for lowband and distant VHF signals!

LOL! LOL! LOL! THAT WAS GREAT!

That Radio Shack antenna has been around for years. I think it is one of the best ones on the market. I have seen them modified in many different ways for home and vehicle use. I just wish they would make that antenna with options for base mounting and other types of vehicle mounting. The Antenna Specialists MONR33 is another kicka** scanner antenna.

Also, a scanner is only as good as the antenna you use for it. Make sure you get a good antenna if you plan on using the scanner in your car.

Are you looking for a mobile or a portable? Do you want one that can pick up trunked systems? Stay away from Radio Shack brand. Get a Uniden.

I know that up here in Orange County there is a problem with career EMS workers not having support to each other. Many of these people who stab someone in the back in a heart beat. Many of these people are out for themselves and they will do anything to try to get advancement or recognition. The turnover rate for these companies is high because you cannot survive on $9/hr and because some of these companies are driven by profits they make their employees carry a very heavy workload. The companies do not want to add more units on the road so they make thier current units work way to hard. The EMS Community in general needs to band together and have their voice heard on the Federal level. The FDs both paid and volunteer have a very loud voice within the states and on the federal level. Even with the volunteers, there often times is no teamwork going on. VAC A is fighting with VAC B because they took a call in their district or VAC B is mad at VAC A because they did not get called to the MCI job last week etc etc etc.

I was going to mention that Rural/Metro FD was around several years ago. I remember them being very short lived. This just backs up what I said about how 911 EMS should be run by hospitals or a municipality.

It is a big problem. Yes EMTs are a dime a dozen. These companies hire new EMTs right out of class who have little or no experience. Look at the commercial services and the unexperienced EMTs and Medics they have working for them. You do not see many "old timers" around. Why not? Because EMS does not pay enough money to do it for your entire life. There is no incentive to stay working for a company that does not pay you what you are worth and provide good benefits. What kind of retirement package do you get? Maybe a crappy 401K if you are very lucky. This is why you guys need a Union! Aside from unions I do not believe in For-Profit Commercial services providing 911 EMS anyway. Anyone who has been around in EMS for any long period of time will tell you that Municipal or Hospital based EMS is the way to go. I know this is a little off topic but when I get in discussions about private EMS etc, this is what I tell people.........You do not see private police departments enforcing the laws in your town, you do not see private fire departments responding to fire calls, you do not see private DPWs plowing your roads. Why should a private EMS company be providing emergency medical care to you?

I think you guys should try again with the Union. There will be some resistance, but in the long run it will work out well. Only getting paid $9/hr is BS! I just saw a sign at the local Cumberland Farms last night saying starting pay is $9/Hr plus night differential if you work the night shift.

AMEN!

I get disgusted when I hear employees of a commerical service say they are terrified to unionize because they WILL lose their jobs. They need to be informed that it is their right to organize and if they fired for participating the company will get in a lot of trouble. I think that maybe the unions may need to be a little agressive and make sure these hard working EMS employees know their rights.

I am very happy to see the situations being addressed here, but it needs to go a lot further then this site to make any difference at all. Do not get me wrong, I love the input from everyone and I may learn something new from what is said here. Thanks for recognizing my proactive approach to situation. I cannot just sit back like many others in the EMS community and wait for things to fall apart before doing a damn thing about it. These problems need to be address now before the Sh!t hits the fan.

I am impressed with the input so far.

Although I do not currently work as a paid EMT, I worked for Empress EMS many years ago. When I was working there we organized a union. The union provided many benefits to the employees. To this day I am a strong supporter of the formation of unions for EMS workers. It is time that you get paid what you are worth, not what your employer thinks you are worth. Take a look at the link below and see the reasons why you should form a union. http://www.iaep.org/toolbox.shtml

http://www.uh-ems.org/now_hiring.php

Let me start off by saying that some of my views listed below may be considered unpopular. I am not here for a popularity contest. I am here to state some facts and some opinions. I have been a volunteer here in Chester for 12 years. I rose from being a driver to being the Captain. The leadership structure is a lot better then it was 12 years ago, but there has been a decline in membership. Along with this decline, the call volume has increased. We went from having 400-500 calls a year to over 900 calls in 2005. By no means are we the busiest, but we are not the slowest. There are two VACs here in Orange County that get over 2000 calls per year and there is one VAC that only gets about 150 calls per year. A few years back we knew that we were having a problem covering our day time calls. One of these years (cannot remember the exact year) we missed about 500 out of 850 calls. The membership knew this was a problem and we tried to address it in several ways. They wanted to avoid getting paid staff during the day because then we "would not longer be a volunteer ambulance corps". A few ideas were tossed around, but a solution could not be reached. It was not fair to the residents of my town that they had to wait a long time for a bus to reach them. When we could not crew for a call, a private EMS service (Mobile Life Support Services) would handle our calls. Sometimes it would take 20+ minutes for them to get to the scene. I was serving as First Lieutenant during this time period and I knew that something needed to be done. Morale was at an all time low because we sucked so bad. We had two options. We could hire EMTs to work during the day or we could enter into a leasing agreement with a commercial service for them to provide EMTs to us for day time coverage. After some long discussions we decided that the best route was to enter into a leasing agreement with a commercial service for daytime EMTs. We started this program and immediately the results were positive. We had already started soft billing a few years prior and we knew that being able to answer our daytime calls would generate enough revenue to cover the cost of the EMTs. To this day I know that this was the best move my organization made. Response times were drastically reduced. The public saw the difference and they were happy. The FD & PD were also pleased. Often times we arrive on scene before the FD or PD. Now, this is where the problems begin. We are covering our daytime calls. Once in a while a second jobs comes in while the paid crew is on the first job and we cannot assemble a crew, but some surrounding VACs having daytime staff and they provide mutual aid to us. We are begining to miss many of our nighttime calls. I know that it is impossible for us to cover 100% of our calls, but the number of calls we are missing is increasing. We are trying to get our members to cover calls and sign up for shifts on the nights and weekends, but it is up hill battle. We are not the worst VAC when it comes to not covering our calls, but if things continue like this we will work our way up to the top. I do not want to see this happen. I know that the majority my members would not support having paid staff at night and on the weekends. What do I do? I do not want to see us get to the point where we are not a volunteer ambulance corps anymore, but I have a feeling if things progress in this direction we may have no choice. I do have a small group of very dedicated volunteers, but it is always the same group of people taking the calls and taking shifts. Everytime we get a new member there is another member who leaves for one reason or another. Another problem is that I have members that are being forced to move out of town, out of the county or even out of the state because they cannot afford to live here anymore. The people who are moving into town are not the type of people who want to volunteer. They are buying these huge houses and they have to work their as*ses off just to pay the mortgage. Recently, three of my members had to bite the bullet and move out of state. They moved into Pike County, PA. They are still members here, but they only come down once a week and ride. They used to handle many of our nighttime calls. I know that we are not the only VAC with this problem. This problem is much bigger then some of us may think. Many VACs turn a blind eye to the problem or they just ignore it. The politicians do not care. It is hard enough to get the funding we need from them. Consolidation is not an option because of big ego problems. I truly believe that if the EMS community banded together we could probably make things better, but that also seems like a losing battle. Because the individual town, village, city and fire district governments do not want to address the problems I think the counties need to step up to the plate. Putnam County is off to a good start, but they are the minority. I have come up with several ideas, but without support I am stuck. I know this was an extremely long post, but I want to here from as many people as possible. Maybe something good will come from this. Let me know what you think about the future of Volunteer EMS.

This seems like another County is taking a step in the right direction. Counties should be taking the lead when it comes to EMS.

I started out at Empress as an EMT. I became a dispatcher after I was there for about a year. It was great experience. I learned a lot.

I would have to do something to get locked up for just so I could have a ride in that. It would be worth it. LOL!

A BIG AMEN for all the posts that support this idea. There are many other counties in our area that need to step up and do the same thing!

Would look better with a nice International or Freightliner cab on it.

YAY! A BIG WHOPPING $100! That will give me two tanks of gas. How the hell is that going to really help me or anyone else for that matter? Typical goverment thinking!

Here is a question? Why do we import so much oil? Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Texas have a lot of oil? What about all of the offshore drilling rigs? Where is all this oil going? We should be drilling the hell out of Alaska in the wildlife areas to get the oil we need. Do you really think the animals will give a damn if oil is taken out of the ground? I highly doubt it! As far as all this BS about MTBE etc. The government could not have picked a worse time to mandate MTBE to be taken out of gasoline. What were they thinking? Did they not know that supplies would run short? Do they not realize that there has not been a new refinery built in the US since the 70s? Give me a break! The fact of the matter is, that we need to GREATLY reduce our need for foreign oil. These terrorist countries have us by the balls. We need there oil and they need our money to set up terrorist training camps and train their people to kill innocent Americans. No matter what Bush says, we all know that he owns oil stocks and he is making a bunch of money right now. I have always been a Republican, but Bush needs to remove his head from his @$%. As I stated in an earlier post, if Brazil can stop importing oil, we can do the same. Ethanol is the way to go. It is cleaner burning and better for the environment anyway. <end of rant!>